As is described in "Microsoft Windows Version 3.1 Operating System Function Guide 1993, by Microsoft, pp. 566 to 584("Microsoft" and "Windows" are trademarks of Microsoft Corp.)" and in "PROFS, Basic course, second edition, October 1987, by IBM Japan, Ltd., Chapter 4 Schedule management, p.4-1 to 4-28 ("PROFS" and "IBM Japan" are trademarks of IBM Corp.)", most conventional application programs that are called schedulers display scheduling periods of days, weeks and months. A common four to six week calendar display is shown in FIG. 1.
With this method, however, a schedule for only a current month is displayed, and a 2-week schedule that extends from an immediately preceding month or into an immediately succeeding month cannot be shown in a single display. Although a schedule for an immediately preceding week or for an immediately succeeding week is closely related to a current week, at the beginning or the end of a month, a user must refer to the immediately preceding or immediately succeeding calendar month to check the schedule for the past or the following week. A user cannot view a scheduled event that extends between months which is very inconvenient.
Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 7(1995)-19268 discloses a calendar with which a user can refer to the schedules for months, days and weeks, and for dates, but this cannot resolve the above shortcoming.
As is described in "HP 200LX User's Guide Edition 2, August 1994, by Hewlett Packard, p.3-10 to 3-11("Hewlett Packard" is a trademark of Hewlett Packard Corp.)", a calendar for a six month period is displayed at one time, so that a schedule event that extends between months can be viewed at a glance. With such a display method, however, monthly calendars are merely arranged in a two row by three column grid. According to this method, the display area for an individual day is reduced, and thus scheduled events for an individual day cannot be displayed. If daily data equivalent to that for the calendar of a month shown in FIG. 1 is to be shown, a calendar must be displayed with one sixth of the font size or lower. This is a very serious problem to overcome for a portable computer and for an electronic notebook with a small screen.
To display Japanese, a font of 24.times.24 dots or greater is preferable. Because of the limitations imposed by display screens, it is not possible to ensure that this font size can be provided for the display shown in FIG. 2, and it may not be possible to identify Chinese characters.
It is one object of the present invention to provide a scheduler that ensures a font size can be employed that is appropriate for user viewing, even on an insufficiently large display screen, and that can display a two-week schedule that extends from an immediately preceding month or into an immediately succeeding month. It is another object of the present invention to display a calendar for a period that a user desires.